SINGAPORE - There is deep potential for the insurance industry to digitalise and it should ride the digital wave to ready itself for future challenges, said Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat.
For example, Asia has since 1990 accounted for about half of the global economic losses from natural disasters - and yet last year, insured losses for catastrophes accounted for only 9 per cent of economic loss in Asia, as compared to 24 per cent globally.But Covid-19 has heightened the awareness of managing future risks, and Mr Heng said a silver lining of the pandemic is that it has given greater impetus for companies and governments to have better insurance.
He added that insurance firms can also look to use tech in more advanced ways as well. For instance, by harnessing data from the end-to-end digitalisation of supply chains, satellite imagery and social media will provide a better sense of economic and risk exposure.